Outlast

Outlast is one of the most terrifying survival horror franchises in gaming, developed by independent Montreal studio Red Barrels. Built on a simple but brutal idea, the games strip players of all weapons and force them to survive through hiding, running, and sheer nerve, armed with nothing but a camcorder and its night vision mode. The result is a series that has earned a fearsome reputation as some of the most genuinely frightening games ever made, the kind that players struggle to finish with the lights off. Across three games and a prequel expansion, Outlast has built a disturbing, interconnected world held together by the sinister Murkoff Corporation.

The original Outlast was one of the scariest games I ever played. Alien: Isolation, Emily Wants to Play, Resident Evil 7, none of them come close to how scared this game made me.

The Outlast Games in Order

The series follows a clear order. It began with Outlast in 2013, followed by the prequel expansion Outlast: Whistleblower in 2014. Outlast 2 arrived in 2017 with an entirely new setting and cast, and The Outlast Trials, a cooperative prequel to the entire series, launched in early access in 2023 before its full release in 2024. A long-promised Outlast 3 was announced back in 2017 but has yet to receive concrete details, with Red Barrels pouring its attention into supporting The Outlast Trials with ongoing seasonal content.

The Outlast Formula

What sets Outlast apart is its commitment to helplessness. There is no combat in these games, no guns, no melee weapons, no way to fight back against the horrors that hunt you. The only tools at the player’s disposal are their legs and a handheld camcorder, whose night vision mode is essential for navigating the pitch-black environments but constantly drains batteries that must be scavenged to keep the lens working. That mechanic creates relentless tension, forcing players to choose between seeing clearly and conserving power while something terrible closes in. The found-footage presentation, all shaky cam and green-tinted darkness, heightens the dread and makes every encounter feel intimate and inescapable.

Outlast and the Mount Massive Asylum

The original game follows investigative journalist Miles Upshur, who breaks into the remote Mount Massive Asylum after receiving a tip about inhumane experiments. What he finds is a facility overrun by the Variants, violently insane former patients, and the lingering presence of a supernatural force called the Walrider. As Miles digs deeper, he uncovers the role of the Murkoff Corporation and the horrifying science behind the asylum’s collapse. The Whistleblower expansion fills in the story from another angle, following software engineer Waylon Park, whose actions set the entire outbreak in motion, and introducing unforgettable antagonists like the deranged Eddie Gluskin. Together they form one of horror gaming’s most harrowing opening chapters.

Outlast 2 and Temple Gate

Outlast 2 abandoned the asylum entirely for a sprawling, sun-scorched stretch of the Arizona desert. Players take control of cameraman Blake Langermann, who along with his wife Lynn is investigating the mysterious death of a pregnant woman before a helicopter crash separates them in the wilderness. What follows is a descent into religious nightmare, as Blake is hunted by the fanatical followers of a doomsday cult led by the preacher Sullivan Knoth, as well as a rival faction of Heretics. Trading institutional horror for apocalyptic faith, Outlast 2 doubled down on the series’ psychological intensity and disturbing imagery, proving the formula could terrify just as effectively outside a confined building.

The Outlast Trials

The Outlast Trials took the franchise in a bold new direction by introducing cooperative multiplayer. Set in 1959 at the height of the Cold War, it casts players as Reagents, test subjects involuntarily recruited by Murkoff to endure horrifying experiments in mind control and conditioning inside the Sinyala Facility. Up to four players can tackle its trials together, or brave them solo, surviving gauntlets of enemies and traps while Murkoff works to break their minds. As a prequel to the original games, it deepens the lore of the corporation and its experiments, and Red Barrels has supported it with a steady stream of seasonal updates, new environments, and events that have kept its community engaged well beyond launch.

The Murkoff Corporation and Outlast Lore

The thread tying the entire series together is the Murkoff Corporation, a ruthless organization that hides monstrous human experimentation behind a veneer of corporate respectability and scientific progress. Its work with the Morphogenic Engine and figures like the unsettling Rudolf Wernicke connects the asylum, the Trials, and the supernatural Walrider into a single grim continuity. Red Barrels has expanded that lore beyond the games through tie-in materials like The Murkoff Account, fleshing out the conspiracy that underpins every entry. It is this connective tissue, a believable evil corporation willing to destroy any number of lives in the name of profit, that gives Outlast its lasting sense of dread.

Outlast endures because it understands that true horror comes from powerlessness. By refusing to let players fight back, the series forces them to feel every ounce of fear its worlds can muster, and few franchises have ever done it better. With The Outlast Trials still going strong and an Outlast 3 lingering on the horizon, Red Barrels remains one of the most reliable names in the genre for anyone brave enough to keep playing.